In a pickle over Pickle

Our Pickle is obviously an old chap. Well, I’m assuming he is because although we don’t know his age he certainly looks like a big old fellow.

Anyway he has never been very good at climbing. As I mentioned before I don’t think Pickle or his brother Tomato could’ve had much of an opportunity to climb before they joined our family, because Pickle has always managed to climb up the bars ok, its just getting back down or into a hammock that causes him problems.

In fact just after we lost his brothers, Toffee and Tomato, Pickle had a bad fall and hurt one of his front legs really badly. It swelled up and he was unable to put weight on it. While this stopped him being able to climb, it didn’t stop him doing a three legged hobble while out and about.

It has, however, left us with a dilemma about what to do for him. I’ve lowered all his high up beds in his cage and taken away things he no longer uses, so that if he does fall its not going to be so far. Unfortunately the problem with this is it has created new ways for Pickle to get in a pickle!

One of Pickle’s favourite beds is a plastic storage box. It is open at the front so you can stack them. I tied one of these up at the top of the cage and the boys used it as a bed. To make things safer and so he doesn’t have to climb as high, I lowered the bed, but now Pickle can get over the top of it and he did and he fell!

We’ve been looking at getting a lower cage for him. Savic do some bunny cages called Nero that come in various sizes. We have a couple for our rabbits, so we know they are nice cages. The bars are widely spaced, but that’s not a problem as Pickle is a big boy. And it will only be used for older wobbly rats, so it should never be a problem. And it has the same floor space as his current home, its just the height that is reduced.

The cage isn’t horrendously expensive either, so I think that’s what we’re going to do. It also has the added bonus of leaving us with a spare rat cage incase we come accross any more rats needing a home. Which may happen sooner than we planned if Daisy’s sons are still at the RSPCA.